Tuesday, March 15, 2011

City is ready to compete for Ring of Fire facility

Mayor Keith Hobbs says the city is working on a plan to cut energy costs to try and bring a Ferrochrome Processing plant to Thunder Bay.

The high cost of energy has been a major roadblock for the city in efforts to convince Cliff's Natural Resources to locate the proposed facility here.

Hobbs says it's too early to go into detail about the plan but he believes it will allow Thunder Bay to seriously compete for the facility.

While Sudbury has been named an early favourite by Cliff's to get the processor, Hobbs says Thunder Bay is still on the mining company's short list and at this point it's going to be a bidding war between interested municipalities.

City Council passed a motion at Monday's meeting to let Cliff's and both levels of government know that Thunder Bay is ready to work with the mining company to try and bring the facility to the city.